The Climate Change Commission (CCC) engaged SEDPI to the development of a Climate Adaptation Support Service (CASS) aligned with the eco-town framework. The eco-town framework or ecologically sustainable and economically stable communities, aims to build the resiliencies of both the communities and ecosystems towards the impacts climate change. CCC hopes to demonstrate this framework in various sites in the Philippines with the goal of developing communities and ecosystems that are resilient to the impact of the changing climate.
The engagement has four components: (1) review and inventory of conditional cash transfers; (2) program design development for CASS; (3) conduct of financial literacy trainings; and (4) development of CASS transfer mechanism.
The eco-town demonstration also primes the municipality or group of municipalities in their decision making through the integration of climate change in their local planning process. Among the seven components of the eco-town, the Climate Adaptation Support Service (CASS) both addresses vulnerabilities of communities and ecosystems by increasing their economic and climate change resiliencies, respectively. CASS serves as an interim assistance that will be provided to the vulnerable communities in the aim of attaining economic resiliency. It was essentially designed to compensate members of the communities for undertaking sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems that in effect decreases the vulnerabilities of the communities and the ecosystems to the impacts of climate change. It targets households with income below the poverty threshold that are located within high risk areas of the eco-town.